


Guilt

by captainbowties



Category: Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Civil War, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-08 04:38:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainbowties/pseuds/captainbowties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was his fault.</p>
<p>It was his fault, and Tony knows that it was his fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick one-shot I threw together in my US History class a while back. It's not all that plot-heavy, but rather just a few musings on Tony's thoughts after Steve's death. Implied superhusbands if you squint.

It was his fault.

 

It was his fault, and Tony knows that it was his fault.

 

Still, though. He can’t help but blame Steve, just a little. After all, if he’d just agreed with him, if he’d just backed down… it could have been so damn simple. Of course, Tony realizes that he could have done the same, but he honestly just can’t bring himself to think like that right now… it hurts too damn much.

 

Tony’s never thought much of himself, honestly, but when he looks down through the glass coffin to Steve’s broken body, his torso partially covered with a shield, he’s absolutely disgusted with himself. And not just with himself, but with the entire war, with the Mutant Registration Act itself. It’s not that Tony’s let go of his own beliefs, it’s not that at all… he knows that he was right, he saw the plans for Project Wideawake, and he knows that the MRA was everyone’s best option in the long run. He _knows_ that.

 

But if he’d known that fighting for it was going to take his best friend, his most trusted companion, his _Steve_ , away from him, he’d have backed down immediately and turned the argument over to the Secret Avengers in a heartbeat.

 

Tony, despite all of his insecurities, despite all of his deep-seated self-loathing, has never _truly_ wished for death until now. It’s not that he wants to die without Steve, this isn’t Romeo and Juliet, and he isn’t some star-crossed idiot. That’s not it.

 

It’s the sheer thought that if Steve hadn’t pulled his punches that last fight, if he hadn’t given up… if he’d just killed Tony while he had the chance… Sure, he’d probably still be dead. A different battle outcome probably wouldn’t have stopped Skull from getting all the power he had, probably wouldn’t have stopped Sharon from pulling that damn trigger… but those were just ‘probably’s.

 

There’s always the thought of what-if. What if Steve hadn’t stopped himself from killing Tony? What if that kept him from getting arrested? What if that kept him from getting shot? And then there was the simple fact that if Tony was dead, if he’d died before the shooting… he wouldn’t have to deal with all of this disgust, all of this horrible white-hot guilt, and all of this crushing, _soul-destroying_ grief.

 

And Tony’s just selfish enough to want that. More than anything.


End file.
